The Beguiling Dark Stars
by Tiffany Park
Summary: King Ashura seeks for a way to exceed Fai's magical power, and finds that some things should stay locked up and hidden from the world. (Lovecraftian)


TITLE: The Beguiling Dark Stars

AUTHOR: Tiffany Park

CATEGORY: Drama, Horror, AU, Crossover with H.P. Lovecraft's Mythos, specifically, the story "The Haunter of the Dark"

SPOILERS: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle Chapitres 150 through 172.

RATING: PG

CONTENT WARNINGS: Creepiness, I hope. Some grotesque imagery.

SUMMARY: King Ashura seeks for a way to exceed Fai's magical power, and finds that some things should stay locked up and hidden from the world.

STATUS: Complete

ARCHIVE: Please ask first

DISCLAIMER: Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle and its characters belong to CLAMP, Del Rey Ballantine Books, Random House Inc., Kodansha Ltd., Funimation, and probably a whole bunch of other people and companies I know nothing about. "The Haunter of the Dark" was written by H.P. Lovecraft almost 100 years ago, and at this point belongs to all kinds of publishing houses. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. This story may not be posted elsewhere without the consent of the author.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: What's my excuse for this bit of weirdness? Well, it's been too hot to sleep well for weeks now, my head is in a really strange place, and this started creeping out of the corner shadows while I was trying to work on "Like Sunshine." So I went with it. ***G*** I've done some kind of Lovecraft crossover (either a real crossover or just references and in-jokes) in most fandoms I've written more than a couple stories in, so why should TRC be spared? ***G*** Besides, I can't be the only TRC reader out there who has noticed that the worldview in TRC works well with Lovecraft's Mythos.

Some dialogue and a number of situations were lifted straight from "The Haunter of the Dark." I took liberties with it, however, and also with some other references from the Mythos. Lovecraft purists should consider themselves warned.

* * *

**The Beguiling Dark Stars **

**by**

**Tiffany Park**

At last, the stars are right.

Even were I not a dreamseer, one who witnesses future events in dreams and nightmares, still I would know that this night, the night I have long dreaded and long anticipated, has arrived. As King of Seresu, I have been taught the hidden and secret lore. Unlike most other magicians, I know what to seek in the sky. All the astrological phenomena are in position; the heavens themselves proclaim the importance of this night.

Only every two hundred years do the stars align so perfectly, in the proper configuration to allow access to Seresu's most ancient artifact.

I gained control of the keys to that mysterious object on the day of my father's untimely death. He died in his prime, when he should have been strongest. But life and death can be capricious: He took a fever one night, and by morning had slipped away.

I grieved for him, but it was the usual way of things. My family is accursed, and it is our own doing. Almost all of us die young, and family stories claim that our ownership of the artifact is the cause. We are intimately connected to it, and even though it is hidden far off in the Northernmost Wastes, it saps away our lives. Yet no one ever suggests disposing of it, nor proposes using magic to fling it into the Outer Darkness from whence it came. It is too precious to us, for it promises ultimate power to the one who can master it.

To obtain mastery over the mysterious object known as the Shining Trapezohedron is to gain power and knowledge of the universe. So say the legends. Unimaginable power can be achieved. Any knowledge desired may be learned. All truths become available, even such things which no mortal may know.

And so my family, the royal family of Seresu, maintains possession of the Shining Trapezohedron. We cling to our right to own it, despite the fact that it can only be accessed every two hundred years, despite the fact that to glimpse it is not only to gain the power, the knowledge, of the Old Gods, but also to court the utmost danger.

I was but a boy when I first heard the cautionary tales of a royal ancestress, the beautiful and vain Queen Báthory, who lived the last time the stars had been right, and sought immortality through the power of the ancient artifact.

An old, fragmentary quote from an unknown source has been passed down in the royal family along with knowledge of the Trapezohedron. It was that which spurred her to seek the forbidden in her quest for eternal youth. No one knows what the quote truly means, but we are all taught it:

_"That is not dead which can eternal lie,_

_And with strange aeons even death may die."_

Most consider it a reference to the Old Gods, to dark gods, to Great Cthulhu, to Yog-Sothoth and the blind and mindless Azathoth, who dwells in the center of Ultimate Chaos, lulled by the music of droning flutes, and from whom springs all creation.

Queen Báthory, however, believed it a clue to immortality, and dared to view that age-old treasure, the Shining Trapezohedron. She had desired its power so she could stay young forever, but she had gone on to bathe in blood—literally, or so the old accounts claim. In that less enlightened time, her transgressions were overlooked so long as she preyed upon the peasantry, whom the upper classes considered only slightly better than beasts of burden.

But then she went too far, claiming several children of the nobility as her victims, and the royal family had had no choice but to lock her away. And so she lost her power in a lonely tower, confined behind barricades of magic, stone walls, and thick, iron-wrought doors. She lived four long years in that state, and it is said that cackling and shrieking rang from her cell at all hours of the day and night.

That was probably an exaggeration—she had to sleep sometime—but it added a delightfully creepy thrill to the story when I was young.

One day, her lofty prison was silent, even when food was pushed through the narrow slit in the door. Her guards cautiously entered her cell and found her dead. There were no marks upon her body. No one investigated the circumstances too closely, although poison was rumored to be the cause of death. In truth, her killer did her a favor. Death freed her from whatever horror had consumed her sanity and her spirit, from the hell her life had become.

I learned her story at my father's knee. Father told it often as an object lesson to me, and as I grew older he became even more direct in his warnings of the Trapezohedron's dangers. He was never specific—none know exactly what the treasure can do, nor even what it looks like. We only know vague promises of power and knowledge, and warnings of terrible danger.

From my father I learned all the lore and secrets, and also the incantations and the keys needed to unlock this great and terrible treasure. All crown princes of Seresu learn such. And if one should die before becoming king, the secrets are passed to the next in line. All rulers of this country must know these things. The guardianship of the ancient heirloom is our heritage, our pride and our shame. We cannot give it up.

We both knew, my father and I, that the stars would be right during my lifetime. Such astrological and astronomical phenomena happen in predictable cycles, and this cycle recurred every two centuries. The time would come for me. Perhaps Father guessed that he would die young, as so many of his forebears had done, so that it would be during my own tenure as king that the stars would align. He knew the temptations I would endure, and how hard it would be to let the night of nights pass, and leave well enough alone.

Yet, his warnings always seemed rather hypocritical to me. It was obvious he regretted that he would not live to see it for himself. His own eyes glittered with longing and regret every time he spoke of the Trapezohedron, whether to warn me of its dire threat or to inform me of its very real allure.

I cannot blame him. We all want it. It is in our blood.

Father often whispered that an entity known as the Haunter of the Dark would be awoken by gazing into the artifact. He claimed it was an avatar of a god, the god Nyarlathotep, who can take many forms, even that of a man, and that it possessed a great aversion to light. My father knew little more of this strange being's true nature, but he spoke at length of its ghastly demands. To master the artifact and gain its power, it seemed, one must overpower, or appease by awful sacrifices, this terrible being. He left unsaid what was obvious: that Queen Báthory had tried appeasement, and failed…

How could he have known, though, that it was destiny itself that burdened me, that it was fate that I should be king at the proper time, and thus inherit the right and the keys to enter the Trapezohedron's ancient prison, to hold and gaze upon that glorious and monstrous gift from the unknowable realms beyond the stars.

At the time, even I did not know the truth of that, though I have had many dreams of future events. Perhaps the reason I dream the future is related to that fate, that I should release and accept unto myself the ancient powers of that which is Seresu's greatest treasure and its darkest secret.

It all seems so obvious now, in hindsight.

On the day Father died, the day I became king, I woke from a prophetic dream, a dream about a journey to the tower in the Northernmost Wastes. I knew then that I would have no choice but to join that small company of royal ancestors who quested beyond human reason. Yes, my dreams showed me that, like them, I would also seek out the forbidden.

That unhappy day, I received the Seal of my office, and access to Father's most private effects. I was not dilatory in asserting my ownership of both. I knew that among his most closely guarded possessions were the keys.

Since time immemorial, the Kings and Queens of Seresu have been entrusted with the only keys to the wards, seals, and strong locks guarding the Shining Trapezohedron. We have held those keys since that fabulous and terrible vessel of strange magic fell from the Outer Darkness and into our hands. Some have claimed that the gods themselves sent it to us, but that, of course, cannot be confirmed. There have been others before Queen Báthory who abused the privilege, although few, as the divine and infernal artifact can only be accessed so rarely. The keys and incantations that unlock it will only work when the stars are right.

And my time was coming.

Still, I had many years before the stars would align, and many years to deny fate and the compulsions of my own blood. I buried the knowledge of the future in the deepest recesses of my mind, and did my best to close my inner ears to the siren call of the Trapezohedron. And the years passed, and I settled into my role as ruler of Seresu, and for a time life seemed routine.

But then I dreamed of a child, a boy who, for the sake of all that lived, must kill me. A child that I would love more than anything: more than my people, my kingdom, my world—even my own life. And in those dreams I desired that the child kill me, nay, I all but begged him to kill me. Those dreams swamped my whole being. I cared not about any consequences, I only knew that my death would save the child from an unspeakable fate, and the child was all that was important to me. I woke knowing I must find that child, and I set to discovering the truth of him.

Sometimes my dreams are like that. Sometimes they guide me, and sometimes they instill in me awful and overpowering compulsions and obsessions. This was one of the latter, although it also provided the greatest joy and satisfaction I have known in my whole life.

I spent several years seeking the prophesied child. He lived not in Seresu, nor even my world. I used much magic in my quest: scrying, translocation, and forbidden spells of which I dare not speak aloud.

Eventually, I found him. A bedraggled and abused waif, a sad little prince with unimaginable magic power. He had been abandoned and forgotten in an ancient place of death and imprisonment, a place of snow and ice and howling winds. I found him, clutching the broken body of his twin brother, shaking amid the ruins of a fallen tower and crumbling stone walls.

Ah, Fai. My poor Fai. Your destiny stripped you of all things that humans cherish. Your family, your country, and even your true identity: When you came to Seresu, you abandoned your own name, your birth name, taking instead your dead brother's. Poor Fai, who was once Yuui...

In those tiny hands, that wretched child held not only a fraternal corpse, but also the power to destroy worlds. He was cursed, poor boy, to be a destroyer, and his soul was dying, crushed under the unbearable weight of torment and guilt.

And because my dreams compelled me, I took this potential world destroyer, the one I hoped would kill me, to my home, to Seresu, and raised him as my own.

A strange act, one might think. But I was driven by dark dreams and darker destiny. And in the end, all that mattered not. I loved him from the first moment I saw him. I love him still. I love him more than my life, more than anything. More than my country and my people. Just as my darkest dreams foretold.

Fai is all that matters, the only person who is real to me, and that fact allows me to follow through with my plans to save him from the evil curses that would otherwise consume him.

He was always a melancholy child, my Fai. Such were the burdens of his past and his future. But still, I believe he found some happiness in Seresu, with me. I reveled in my love for my child, and rejoiced that he loved me as a father. And even rejoicing, I grieved, for him and for myself, because I knew then that what must come would shatter the bond between us.

My darling Fai, my little boy... You don't understand that neither of us have ever had any choices. It is all fate, the destiny promised by my prophecy. I do not believe the future that I have dreamt can be changed, at least not by me. So instead I help it along its way to the inevitable end, I nurture it so that it will bear the preordained fruit.

And now my Fai is grown, a fine young warrior, the most powerful wizard in all the world, and the time quickly approaches when both of us must face destiny. I have observed the sky and drawn up the astrological charts. The stars are right.

It is destiny, all destiny, and the will of dark gods.

My dear child, my Fai, is burdened by two curses, and has been since he was a little boy, before I ever met him. One curse forces him to kill the first magician he meets who is more powerful than him, and the second demands that he must murder me to avoid becoming ensnared into a terrible doom, a doom which will engulf any world he occupies. Should I die in any way other than by Fai's hand, this monstrous curse will come to unholy life, and all will be lost.

I cannot fathom the kind of mind that would conceive of such sadistic curses, nor the type of unreasoning hatred that would lead one to so curse a child so young. Perhaps the magician who cursed Fai had touched the old, dark gods and gone mad, perhaps he was one of the dark ones himself. It matters not. He has bound my life, my death, to Fai's fate, and I know what must be done in answer. I have always known what must be done, and what must be sacrificed.

Truly, I have known since the day I met Fai that I must gain more power than him, and so force him to kill me. Thus would I eliminate both Fai's horrible curses, with but a single blow. I schemed for years to accomplish this goal. I bound his power with magical restraints and altered his memories to accept that binding, but even so his magic still far outstrips mine. There is but one way left to me to achieve enough power.

Though it be locked away in the Northernmost Wastes, in a high stone tower and behind the strongest of eldritch barriers, the Shining Trapezohedron calls to me again.

And now the stars are right. The culmination of my life and my dreams approaches.

But now... Now my prophetic visions have deserted me. Perhaps I need them no longer, now that they have shepherded me to my ruin. I know no details, though I do know that I, like Queen Báthory, will follow the path of appeasement, of blood and horrific sacrifice, when the Haunter of the Dark appears, and through that course I will gain power.

Unlike Queen Báthory, I will not be stopped, and I both rejoice and mourn what I shall do. Once I set the future in motion, it cannot be halted. Its momentum will roll on and on, reverberating throughout the infinite reaches of Time and Space, and no one, not even I, who has often dreamt the future, can truly predict the final outcome.

My resolve is firm.

I collect the necessary things in a satchel, and then I depart my home. It is but a trifle to whisk myself to the forbidden tower using a translocation spell. I materialize just outside its magical barrier.

The tower stands alone, wreathed in shadows and starlight, a tall, forbidding spire that juts skyward, as though to pierce the cloudless night sky and rend the starry heavens to shreds. Its very tip glows with odd, golden light. The tower's base rests on a barren expanse of ice that seems to stretch out to the edge of the world. A foreboding wind howls, frigid and never ceasing, tangling my hair and penetrating even through my warm, fur cloak. A peculiar scent in the air hints strangely of rot, although everything is frozen solid, and nothing living ever graces the surroundings. I dressed warmly in anticipation of the cold, yet still I feel frozen here. It is not a cold of the body, but of the heart and soul. Something about this place speaks of loss, of doom, of horror beyond imagining, and yet there is nothing terrifying here. Just ice, and wind, and a tower in the clear, moonless night.

Forewarned by old stories, I expected nothing more and nothing less, yet I cannot help but be affected by the dread atmosphere that coils about the tower.

Some primitive part of myself is cowering in the back of my mind, chanting over and over, "Go back, go back, go back."

But my intellect scoffs at that atavistic and cowardly behavior. I have merely been conditioned to dread this place by fables and warnings. Nothing terrible has happened yet, and will not happen until I commit the ultimate sin possible in my world.

I have spent years preparing myself. I know that this chain of events will not end well for me. Mindless fear will not change anything. It is my destiny to die in my prime. As I cannot change the future, I instead will create it, as my dreams showed me. At last I understand why I dreamt I would journey here, why I would view the Shining Trapezohedron, despite knowing the perils. This crime I seek to commit is for Fai's sake. And mine, as well. The old stories promise infinite knowledge. Shouldn't I get something out of this venture, my condemnation? And the greatest secrets, nay, the ultimate truths, of the universe—isn't that just compensation? I will gain the power to force Fai to save himself, and I shall die knowing that which is unknowable to other mortals. There is satisfaction to be had in both of those things.

I know it for hubris, that human flaw which the gods despise and punish, but I do not care. No, I only press on.

I open my satchel and extract the first of the keys, a small disk of iron with mystic symbols and runes inscribed upon it. All of the keys in my possession can only be used when the stars are properly aligned, as they are tonight. Normally, they feel like any other inanimate or magical object, but not now. Now, my hands tingle when I touch the keys, and they seem to whisper to me and extend little feelers that burrow into my skin as my fingers brush across them.

The iron disk feels colder than the ice beneath my feet, even though it has been kept securely beneath my cloak and by my side. That bone numbing cold does not feel like magic, at least not any magic I know. It feels alien, utterly nonhuman, yet humans must have created this tower and set these wards. Surely I am letting my imagination run away with me.

Surely.

I press the disk against the barrier and utter the proper words, words of power that activate the key. A splinter of searing cold shoots up my arm and into my heart. Though the night is clear, an ominous growl of thunder rumbles over the barren plain of ice.

The mystical barrier becomes porous to me, and I pass through easily. Behind me, it reasserts itself. Only I, bearing the keys and using the correct incantations, can pass through it.

And how simple it was to accomplish! How strange. For all the warnings, the terrifying stories and promises of power and disaster, that the barrier should fall so easily to the proper touch. The only change is the cold splinter that has lodged in my heart. But I always knew I would not emerge from this venture unscathed. And I know that a heart rent by cold will not be the greatest change in me.

The wind calls mournfully, and the scent of rot grows subtly stronger. It is not really there, yet it is. It is something I cannot explain. The fear that lurks in the deepest corners of my mind gibbers. The ambition, exhilaration, and determination are more dominant, and overpower the frightened part of me.

I step forward, and walk to the base of the tower. A door of solid iron is set in an iron frame. Upon both, strange symbols glow with greenish phosphorescence, eerie and barely visible. They are disturbing, twisted. They seem deviant, almost like parodies of mystical sigils, but I can feel their power. Like the barrier, there is that about them which does not feel like human magic, but rather alien, not of this world.

There are three heavy locks, as well. The door's protections are both magical and mundane. Each ward must be released, each lock unlocked, in the proper sequence, or the tower will reject me, and remain unbreached until the next time the stars align.

Every King of Seresu commits that combination to memory, and so this is also a trivial task for me. As I use each key, utter each incantation, the softly glowing symbols dim and vanish. With each, a new splinter lodges in my heart, splinters of ice, of fear, of hunger for an inhuman rapture. I accept each, telling myself that this is a welcome change in me. I have no choice, for I know it is necessary. The future that I cannot change, that I do not want to change, drives me onward. I will create that future; I will make it happen. Such is my obsession.

Then the last of the wards is banished, all locks are released. The tower is mine.

Again, I marvel at how easy it was. Almost as though the tower, and its contents, desire me to enter. But that is foolishness. It was easy because I held all the keys, all the incantations, and all the knowledge required to pass through the barriers. It would be easy for any King of Seresu, I tell myself. And it is my destiny to come here, and I have been waiting for years. Waiting, memorizing and rememorizing, rehearsing, planning. Of course it was easy.

The door opens at my barest touch, swinging in absolute silence, as though its hinges had been newly greased. No, even more silent than that. It is magic—ancient magic, dark magic, something foreign, frightening, and also, perversely, intriguing. It permeates this place; it has seeped into every crack, every stone, every brace and reinforcement of metal.

I cross the threshold, and by that most simple act commit and condemn myself to whatever comes next. I close the door behind me, and move forward into the chamber. Within, it is strangely warm—more magic, human magic this time. All around me is darkness, darker than the moonless, starry night outside. I dare to disturb the ancient magic with a little of my own, just a trifle, and conjure a ball of light to see by. My light flickers, dims, as the deep, hungry shadows devour much of its insipid illumination. Still, what is left is enough.

The chamber is windowless and barren, composed of nothing but stone: stone walls, stone floor, stone shelves that, oddly, are completely empty. Dust lies thick and heavy upon every surface. Clouds of it puff up with each step I take. Though this place has not been disturbed in two hundred years, still I scent the same hint of decay that I encountered outside. I look up, into the tower's reaches. I cannot see to the top. The walls climb up and up, and are lost in dense black shadows.

It is so quiet in here. So silent. I cannot hear even the barest whisper of the wind that wails outside.

Here and there, strange scorch marks scar the stone walls and floor. They look dry and ancient, and I wonder what created them. Had there once been a battle when the Shining Trapezohedron was locked away? Did someone oppose its incarceration? Had people fought for it before it was sealed, here in the Wastes?

It is not hard to imagine. There would be many who would do anything to obtain it. That is why it is kept secret from the rest of the world, why it is known only to the royal family. And, as Queen Báthory and others before her had proven, as I demonstrate now, even its royal guardians are not immune to its allure. Nothing can keep it isolated forever, not in the face of human frailty. Greed, weakness, desperation—no, the Trapezohedron will never remain sequestered, not as long as it exists in the human world.

Opposite me, an arched stone portal beckons. Beyond is the stairway, the only way to reach the uppermost level of the tower, where my prize awaits me. The stair steps are carved stone. In most towers like this, they would be worn with age and much use, but despite the heavy dust that cloaks them, they appear brand new. The stairs hug the curving tower walls, spiraling up and up and up, into the dizzying heights. There is no central column to grasp, there are no guardrails along the wall; a misstep could easily prove fatal.

I climb the stairs.

My handful of light is a weak, puny thing compared to the blackness around me. That, I believe, is just as well. I cannot determine how far I would fall, should I stumble or trip. I keep my hand against the curving wall to balance myself. The stone is dry, dusty, and rough. I avoid touching the occasional charred spots that mar the walls even here. I take step after step after never-ending step; more clouds of dust rise and swirl about my feet. I fancy that the shadows around me murmur in my ear, in my head, yet silence enshrouds this staircase. Sometimes I see movement out of the corner of my eye, see amorphous shapes shifting and slithering, but when I turn my head to focus on them, nothing is there. Nothing but stone, and dust, and darkness.

The higher I go, the stranger the walls become. At the base, the staircase circled the tower's wall in a normal, rising spiral. Most castle towers have such stairs built into them. But higher up, the geometry seems to change. Something about it is simply wrong in a way I cannot explain. The angle of curvature is distorted, warped, though the stairs turn smoothly in their helix ascent, as though the walls follow a normal cylindrical shape. I cannot explain it except by magic. It is as though this tower exists in the normal world, and also in a place not governed by any laws of reality of which I am familiar. It must be located in two worlds at once, and both impinge upon my consciousness. But it is becoming clear that the other world which now intersects mine is not any place a human mind can easily comprehend.

The ice splinters in my heart vibrate, and the great, gnawing hunger that they create within me, a void which I must fill, grows ever larger the closer I approach my goal. I know the dark gods beckon me forward; the Shining Trapezohedron calls me to it.

This staircase goes on forever. My thighs and calves are burning. I have to stop several times to catch my breath and allow my muscles to recover. I cannot afford to lose my balance due to weakness. I cannot afford to die now, from falling off the staircase. Fai would die, before he had even begun to meet his own destiny. And to die of a fall, this close to my goal—no, I cannot allow that to happen. I cannot.

At last, after an eternity of climbing, I reach the top. Another iron door greets me, but strangely, this door is not sealed. I merely lift the latch, and push it open.

Dazzling gold light spills out the doorway. After so long in the dark with only a small orb of light to guide me, I am blinded by that awful brilliance. I squint my eyes shut, and must take a moment to let them adjust.

But it only seems so bright because I have become accustomed to darkness. I soon see that it is only a normal level of light, like daylight, and it no longer hurts. I do not need my small handful of light any longer, and dismiss it. I step into the chamber.

Like the rest of the tower, the chamber is blanketed in thick dust that stirs gently at my movements. High overhead, the source of the light is a great, magical crystal. It provides the glow I saw emitted by the apex of the tower. This, at least, is comforting and familiar: it is purely human magic, magic I know well. Light crystals are often used by wizards in their homes, although I have never seen one so large and flawless. Whoever set it here was taking no chances that it would ever fail.

The room is as round as the rest of the tower, and as distorted in that unnamable sense. Four long, narrow windows are set at even intervals. They are glazed, not with glass, but with sheets of a transparent, magical substance designed to focus sunlight like lenses to recharge the light crystal.

In the center of the room and commanding attention, a seven-sided, stone pillar rises from the dust-caked floor. It stands about four feet in height, and perhaps two in breadth. Each side is inscribed with signs and symbols that seem familiar to me, and yet are not. Is this recognition due to some deep knowledge passed throughout the centuries in my family's bloodline, or a resonance with the ice splinters that have lodged in my heart this night?

I cannot know, and it does not matter.

Atop the pillar rests an asymmetrical box, with a hinged lid that is pushed back, so its contents are directly illuminated by the great crystal above. Inside the box is a roughly spherical object some four inches in diameter, held in place above the bottom of the box by seven prongs. It is coated with dust, and I cannot determine more than the rough shape and size.

Something about it is compelling, unnaturally so. I force my eyes away to examine the rest of the room. Lining the curving wall are odd statues, repellent, some with human faces, and some with features I have never witnessed before and which surely cannot have ever existed in this world. I turn, examining each one, and then I look down, and my eyes light upon the remains of—what? Heaps of bones, perhaps they might once have been human skeletons, but now they are stained and charred, twisted and grotesque and tortured. The ends of some bones look almost melted.

My heart judders. Is this the sacrifice that the Haunter of the Dark demands in return for knowledge and power? Should I have brought an offering with me to propitiate that dreadful being? Or is my fate the same as those poor souls, doomed for my temerity in coming here, dead by such unnatural, perhaps inhuman, means?

I almost lose my nerve, but I cannot stop now. It is too late to stop now. My eyes are irresistibly drawn back to the center column, the box, and the strange sphere it contains. Without conscious thought, I step closer to it, closer, until I stand beside it, looking down upon it.

I lift one hand, and release a gentle swirl of magic. The dust blows away, revealing the treasure beneath. Without the obscuring grime, the box is shown to be composed of some odd, yellow metal, though it is not gold, nor bronze, nor any material that I know. It is covered with reliefs depicting various creatures—not human, but things that are alien and macabre, grotesque things that my world could never have birthed.

It only confirms the old legends, that the Shining Traphezohedron came from beyond Seresu, beyond this world, from the unfathomable depths of the Outer Darkness beyond even the stars.

The sphere, I see, is a multifaceted black stone, all shot through with irregular red striations. I cannot tell if it is a natural stone, or has been fashioned into its current form. It may even be completely artificial, a creation of the old, dark gods of Seresu's past, as family mythology claims. A metal band encircles its center, and to this are attached the seven supports that hold it aloft. They connect to the box, so that the whole assembly is one unit.

The stone is fascinating, and I cannot look away. I gaze at its surface, and into its black depths. And, as promised by the legends, it shows me things, pushing the images directly into my mind. Visions flash by, relentlessly. I see alien worlds with great, ebony towers of glistening glass; places with no life; places as arid as the greatest desert yet with tentacle beasts slithering across barren sands. A strange city beneath an endless sea, built of cyclopean blocks, its geometry tilting into dimensions unknowable by human senses. Some dark presence lurks within, dormant, waiting—dead yet dreaming...

The stone shows me brief images of the Outer Darkness, the Great Void, where dwell beings that are the merest wisps of mist, shimmering in a bizarre, ambient nothingness. And beyond that, far beyond even the most infinite gulfs of darkness and horrible abysses of radiance, I get but a glimpse of a central chaos, with strange, sentient forces weaving lines of creation and death and order—and there is more beyond, much more... And a terrible truth—the truth of the gods—

They are so far beyond us—we are less than ants to them. And they are awful, incomprehensible...to look upon them—is it a sin? Is it forbidden?

I seek the forbidden.

I look upon them, _and they look back..._

It is all a maelstrom of life and death and cosmic chaos, jumbles of dimensions that juxtapose and intersect with mortal reality and unbearable depths in places beyond all reason, an abyss, the celestial abyss—blazing, devouring, soaring, drowning, intoxicating, annihilating—

Azathoth help me! I cannot grasp it, I cannot, it will destroy me, burn out my mind and eyes, but I want more— I need more— I must know—

Pure panic assails me, terrible fear, and I wrench my eyes away before my mind is gone. In the silence, I sense something. Something new. Something terrible. That _something_ is behind me, an abominable presence, nonhuman, alien. The shadows congeal all around me, whispering, and the formless thing behind me looms. I can sense it watching me with rapt and hungry intensity—a three-lobed, burning eye!

How do I know that? No, don't think of it—I cannot, I cannot... Horror rises in me, and my stomach turns.

It is the Haunter of the Dark. By gazing into the Shining Trapezohedron, I have summoned it. And true to all the stories, that loathsome being now stands at my back.

I cannot move. I feel entangled, and cold spears pierce my every muscle, every bone, as the Haunter of the Dark looks into me, through me. I feel the monster behind me, I know it rides me. Its presence engulfs me; it is inside me, and not.

Through numbed lips, I murmur, "So. You are with me." My voice is weak and shaky; I am surprised I can make any sound at all.

Though it does not move, though nothing moves, the Haunter of the Dark's focus intensifies.

I can barely keep myself from screaming.

I thought I was prepared, but I was wrong. No mortal could ever be prepared for this. The Haunter of the Dark is an abomination, antithetical to all life, all warmth, all existence. There is no kindness, nor mercy; neither is there any malice, at least none that could be construed as personally directed at me. It simply _is_, and it cares not for any concern of mine.

I know what it wants, what it needs. It must walk the world, reveling in blood, the blood of my people, who are less than insects to it, and it will walk with me, and through my people's blood I will gain power. I speak again. "You know what I want."

Though this being considers me nothing, less than nothing, it still needs a conduit into the world.

Light is anathema to the Haunter of the Dark. Light on the Shining Trapezohedron will contain it, unless it is called. I called it—I called it. And soon, soon... I lift one trembling hand upwards.

Last chance to stop, the fear within me whispers. As long as light envelops the Shining Trapezohedron, the Haunter of the Dark cannot remain for long in this world. I need only wait, and the brilliance of the great crystal overhead will drive the abomination back to the depths of the Outer Darkness from which I summoned it.

A flare of magic shatters the crystal, plunging everything into darkness. Then an odd phosphorescence barely illuminates the room. It is coming from the black stone, the Shining Trapezohedron. I look at my hand, which appears as pale as a corpse's in the sickly glow, and then to the fragments of crystal scattered across the dusty floor. Did I do that? Did I just destroy the light crystal? I must have.

I complete my crime, my betrayal of all humanity, by magically darkening the mystical windows to black opacity. Now the morning light cannot reach the Trapezohedron and banish the Haunter of the Dark. I cannot allow it to again be relegated to the Outer Darkness until the next time the stars are right. I need it—I need it. It must walk this world with me. This is what I wanted, what I searched out—this is the way to gain the power to save Fai...

Remember that, I tell myself. Remember what this is really all about.

I am damned—I have damned myself.

I pray that Fai will soon grant me death and free me, as death had freed Queen Báthory from her torment.

It is but a futile, last gasp of protest.

My mind slips, sliding between sanity and something that is both more and less, something different...and I look at the pillar in the room's center, at the yellow box and its softly glowing contents.

Power, and knowledge, and Fai's salvation...

My pounding heart slows, my breathing calms.

What am I afraid of?

The black stone calls to me, and I cannot keep my eyes off of it. I can feel the Haunter of the Dark's alien, unfathomable scrutiny as my gaze is irresistibly drawn back to the artifact, and images of unmatched horror and unbearable beauty again flood my mind. I hear membranous wings, and the sound of slithering. Light is dark and dark is light, and the scent of rot is overwhelming...

When I come to my senses, it is still night. I am standing in a cold, snowy landscape. In the distance I see the dark silhouettes of mountains blocking out the stars. The dim form of my floating castle hovers over them.

My hands are covered in blood. Warm, wet blood.

At my feet lies the mangled corpse of a man, one of my subjects. It is a fresh kill: steam rises from the raw, bloody tissues slowly cooling in the snow.

I stare at the body. My emotions are numb. How odd. I feel nothing, experiencing no regret or guilt.

I take a deep breath, filling my lungs with the cold, crisp air. Sensation returns in a wild rush. I feel powerful, more powerful than I have ever felt in my life! I raise my gory hands to the cloudless sky, full of alien-familiar stars, and call impossible lightning down to caress my body. Magic and elemental forces and the divine power of dark gods fill the hungry void in my being.

Blood and death—death and blood. It fills me with life and strength and magical power, intoxicating power. I am drunk, drunk on blood, on exciting new power.

I laugh aloud, and then the euphoria passes and I plunge into despair. The lightning strikes cease as my mind, overcome with loss and horror, releases the weather. Sobbing, I fall to my knees. "I'm sorry," I tell the corpse, my victim, my sacrifice for power. His blood, his death fed my magic, as more death will continue to feed me, me and the Haunter of the Dark, and my power will grow and grow, and the Haunter will walk the earth. And I laugh again, hysterically, uncontrollably. I'm not sorry—I am sorry—no, I'm not—

The horizon is turning gray, and I curse the coming sunlight, and also welcome it. For with the sunrise, the Haunter of the Dark will withdraw, and I will be myself. And now I revel in madness, but soon I will despair of it.

I am damned—I am damned—Iä, ngai, Yog-Sothoth, Azathoth, help me, save me—

But they won't— They won't— I have _seen_ them and they have seen me and I know they won't—

I scream as the sun's first rays lighten the mountains, scream in pain and denial and ecstasy.

This is what I wanted! What I schemed and planned and worked so hard to obtain! This is my rapture and my damnation!

I kneel huddled in the snow, and wrap my arms about myself, and laugh, and weep.

"Fai..." I sob. "Fai, Fai..."

My satchel bumps against my side. It feels bulky and heavy. My breath still comes in harsh, heaving gasps, but I open the satchel and stare at what it contains.

Inside is the yellow metal box from the forbidden tower. I take it out and lift the hinged lid. Mounted in its peculiar framework, the hideous black and red stone stares back at me, relentlessly calling. My heart leaps with eagerness and dread, and the ice splinters within it flare and burn. I quickly avert my gaze, not wishing to see the celestial wonders and horrors again, the cosmic chasms and the obscene beauty that dwells within them, I'm not ready for that so soon, not yet, not just yet.

I should destroy it—I should take it to another world and drop it into the deepest ocean I can find—but it's too late, far too late—and I need it, I need it, I need it.

My hand closes the lid, protecting the stone from the dawn. Light shall never touch it again. I tuck the box back in my satchel and stare at the corpse before me. I'm sorry—I'm not sorry. I would do it again. I would.

I will.

I will exceed Fai's power. I will. And he will be forced to kill me and I will save my son from both of his horrific curses.

I will ravage my own country, killing again and again and again and again and again—until I have enough power, until there are no more people left to murder.

And then...and then maybe I will start on the animals...

I am lost, I am found, I am mad, I am sane. I will go home with the dawn, and when night returns I will open the box, and again seek knowledge in the Shining Trapezohedron, witness all that mankind should never see, all that drives sanity and rationality from the soul, learn all that there is to know about the chasms of chaos and this cold, indifferent universe. And I shall go out among my subjects, my countrymen, and blood shall strengthen my power, blood and more blood, and it will never matter, never matter at all, to anyone or anything beyond my small, insignificant world.

For this night I learned the truth: The gods don't love us. They don't hate us.

They simply don't care.

They are beyond us, and barely even know we are alive. We are nothing to them—to any of them.

Nations go to war and destroy themselves, and the gods don't care. Madmen torture babies, as Fai was tortured in his birth country by a monster-magician and even his own family, and the gods don't care. Entire worlds march toward oblivion, and the gods don't care.

I will drench my kingdom in blood, murder all its citizens for the purest and most primal of mortal desires, for the sake of my child, only my child, and I know there will be no divine censure or retribution, no cosmic justice. Because the gods don't care.

Morality and justice are dispensed not by gods, but by the living—only the living. And now, in Seresu, all the living will be exterminated...

And the gods don't care. I laugh again.

"They don't care, they don't care, they don't care," I sing, and my song turns into anguished shrieks of loss.

Gods don't care. Only the living care.

Soon no one but Fai will care.

I cannot bear it, I cannot—but I must, I must, I must for Fai's sake. For Fai's sake.

Fai, my heart cries, as morning light and shreds of sanity assert their hold on my rotting mind. My son, my son— Let it be soon. Let it be quick. Fai—

Kill me.

Free me.

Save me.

Fai.

***** end *****

_July, 2013_

* * *

ADDITIONAL NOTES: Queen Báthory's legend is based in large part on the life and death of Countess Elizabeth Báthory, the "Blood Countess," of Hungary. She lived in the late 16th and early 17th century, and is considered by most experts to be the most prolific female serial killer in history. It is believed that she may have murdered more than 600 girls, although the official number is "just" 80. However, witness testimony is suspect, as the only servant who would not testify against the countess had her eyes gouged out, her breasts cut off, and was burned at the stake. (It's doubtful that anyone else refused to testify the "correct" facts after that little example of the "justice" they could expect from the authorities...) The real story may well be unknown.

There are many tales about the countess's sadistic crimes, although the most lurid (such as her bathing in her victims' blood to retain her youth) arose a hundred years after her death and are probably just fiction, as the original references do not include any such accounts. Due to her high status, she was never arrested or brought to trial, although her family did brick her up in a castle (they "thoughtfully" left slits for air and so her guards could pass food to her), and she died some four years later.

I thought she fit rather well in the Lovecraftian framework, and also as one of King Ashura's ancestors. *G*

* * *

Aaaand just because it's still too freaking hot to think straight, let alone try to write anything particularly creative, here's a brief conversation between an anonymous author and protagonist:

_Protagonist: You suck._

_Author: I beg your pardon?_

_Protagonist: You know what you did. C'mon, Lovecraft's Mythos?_

_Author: Why not? Even in canon, you were living out a horror story, remember?_

_Protagonist: That was different._

_Author: Sure it was. I don't really see what you're so upset about, all things considered._

_Protagonist: You made me find the Shining Trapezohedron! Nothing good ever happens to people who look at that thing. How low can you go?_

_Author: Hey, watch it. You don't want to know how mean I can really get when I'm motivated. Besides, even at my worst, I'm much nicer to you than all those writers who make you abuse and molest your adopted kid, or just act like a bastard for no good reason._

_Protagonist: Grumble… Okay, I'll give you that._

_Author: It could have been a lot worse, you know..._

_Protagonist: A lot worse? You made me look at the Lovecraftian deities! Do you know what happens to people who do that?_

_Author: They go insane. That was kind of the point._

_Protagonist: And then you had the Haunter of the Dark possess me! Look how that turned out._

_Author: Eh, you were going to kill everyone sooner or later, anyway. Besides, it was just an AU. No one cares about what happens in an AU._

_Protagonist: You suck._


End file.
